


Telling Tales

by clutzycricket



Series: Stranger Than You Dreamt It [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 10:23:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: How Arya Stark got a reputation as a tiny, wintery meme in SHIELD, completely by accident.





	Telling Tales

_**One.** _

For a secret agency devoted to dealing with the weird and wondrous, SHIELD… did not have a lot of people with powers.

At least, not that Arya could tell. Lots of people didn’t like being obvious about it, though, so if they could keep it secret, more power to them.

But it also meant that a lot of people were going by, as far as she could tell, horror movies and D&D monster manuals.

It was just embarrassing.

“Why are we eliminating this guy?” she asked Roz Solomon, who was fairly reliable, if mad about environmental science. They were trying to track a vampire who was trading in illegal goods- mostly hybridized weapons, though there was suspicions about some old, magical artifacts that Mal Hightower wanted in her archives. They’d present an answer, and see if it matched with the actual field agents.

“He’s out in the sun,” Hot Pie said. He had a real name, but no one really remembered it. Maybe if he didn’t get dead in a few years, Dolorous Edd had said.

“Vampires can go out in the sun,” Arya said, trying not to sound annoyed. “He’s not new, and they just can’t shapeshift in the sun. He’s working with plants and transporting a lot of dirt through customs, it could be a good way for him to set up a network of safe houses to rest.”

They looked at her.

“Check him out,” Hot Pie said, finally. “How do you know this shit?”

Arya wondered if it would be silly to admit she wrote a term paper on Dracula.

_ **Two.** _

“I hate everything.” Roz was binding up a weeping section of her arm. “I’m an environmentalist, not a firefighter!”

“I don’t think firefighters would be a good idea right now,” Edd said, with a sigh. “The gear would cut down on agility. Of course, without it, we have to deal with burns and claws.”

Arya peeked her head up, looking at what she really hoped weren’t miniaturized Balrogs. There were three of them, sniffing along the street and leaving the smell of burning asphalt in their wake.

Her brothers would be wildly jealous, if they ever heard about it. Which they couldn’t, but Arya could imagine their expressions. That wasn’t a bad thing.

She took a deep breath in, held it until the three were almost in a tight triangle, and then exhaled, thinking cold thoughts.

The thick layer of frost over them was satisfying, at least until it steamed and cracked off. Arya pulled her head back quickly.

“That was both the most amazing and most disappointing thing I’ve ever seen,” Hot Pie said. Roz stepped on his foot.

“They have solid spots now,” Roz pointed out. “Think you can focus it all in a line?”

Arya nodded. She’d practiced that in secret, since Mom was… a bit overprotective. For good reason, but Arya hadn’t actually told anyone she was going to apply for SHIELD for a reason.

She took in a deep breath and focused, launching a needle-thin lance of ice at the closest lava monster. Once it landed, right in the gut, she poured more in, thickening it.

It froze and shattered, right in two.

“Now, that better not leave us with four of them,” Edd said.

It didn’t, but Agent Morse and her liquid nitrogen were very much welcomed.

The fact that the Frozen jokes never ended? Not so much.

_ **Three.** _

Oh, god, Arya thought, trying not to snicker when she saw a familiar figure bent over a corpse.

Being fair, Rhaenys was a medical examiner, and the corpse was on a… was it a gurney or an autopsy table, Arya could never remember? She had her gloves and scrubs on, though, and looked up with an annoyed expression that always reminded Arya of a Hobbit deprived of dinner somehow and was uncannily similar to Jon whenever he was confronted with social demands.

(Look, Arya’s brain was weird. She got that. But Sansa and Bran had blinked and started cackling like lunatics when she’d told them, so clearly she was right.)

“Can I help you?” she asked, before noticing Arya. “Hello, squirt. How’s the family?”

“Mom and Dad are away on their anniversary,” Arya said, “and Sansa isn’t dating, plus Rickon hasn’t gotten in a fight in two weeks, so pretty quiet.”

Rhaenys smiled. Hot Pie gave a slightly strangled noise, and Arya snorted. Rhaenys clearly wasn’t interested in being polite. “Lyanna’s off in somewhere with snow, and Jon is dating, though he won’t say who. Aegon is… I’m not entirely sure, so I should probably be worried. Now, why are you visiting me at work?”

“There’s a dead man we’re interested in,” Arya admitted. “Beric Dondarrion?”

“Ah, him,” Rhaenys frowned. “Very strange. I think I read something in the Dragonstone library, but you can smell the smoke, right?”

Arya raised her eyebrows. “I put oil under my nose. I heard your stories.”

“Well, this one didn’t have a chance to rot,” Rhaenys said, before picking up a scalpel. “Which is peculiar.”

“Strange, even?” Arya liked the creepy wizard, who had saved Bran’s butt. But the puns. Also the betting pool. Agent Morse shot Arya a curious look, which meant she probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, but Rhaella Targaryen would probably be able to shield Rhae from, well, SHIELD.

Or cranky Nymeria Sand, who argued that no one was allowed to torment Rhae about her bad choices but family. Given the fact that Nymeria might have been better than the Black Widow with knives, and hiding knives, Arya really didn’t think anyone argued.

Rhaenys stuck out her tongue. “He’s not involved, munchkin. I think we’ve got a necromancer, though, so if I say run…?”

“Run like hell, making sure you come with me, so I don’t get dead or frogged,” Arya said, grinning. “Depending on who finds me first.”

“Be fair, Aegon would probably just make you think you are a Yorkie,” Rhaenys teased.

The debriefing, which involved a lot of “What the hell, why didn’t you mention your not-quite-cousin was kind of… an enchantress? Is that the term?” and Arya trying to explain that Rhae was not, as a whole, good with people, not getting to hide in her work, and hurting people.

Rhaenys might have gotten the good hot chocolate with the recruiter that came to her door anyway.

_ **Four.** _

“So,” Hot Pie asked, and Arya bit back a groan. That expression meant nothing good. “Are you related to Iron Man?”

The man himself was at the other end of the lab, having a cranky discussion with someone Arya thought was Sarella Sand and Agent Hope. Which was alarming? Ish. Meh, probably a two on the alarm scale, really.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Arya said, without thinking. “The family tree gets… snarled a bit once you go like four generations back. Sansa’s better with that stuff.”

She pulled out a yo-yo and started doing simple tricks. They weren’t quite on babysitting duty, and she’d prefer braining someone with a heavy yo-yo to the headache of shooting the tech.

Of course that caught Tony Stark’s attention.

“Bored, short stuff?” he called over. He’d made a few offhand comments, which made him better than most of their guard duty jobs, but the nicknames were stupid.

“Depends,” Arya said, choosing not to comment on the fact that she was pretty sure he was wearing lifts, “are you going to make something explode?”

“Not yet,” Tony Stark said, grinning. “You’re the Elsa of the little agents, aren’t you?”

Arya grinned and thought about the fact that Sansa was probably taller than him in flats. Hell, he was probably not more than an inch taller than Rhae. “I can make it snow over your head, yeah.”

He didn’t believe her until she actually did it, which over course was when Dr. Banner and the Deputy Director came in.

She made the Hulk laugh! Which was great. Also, she was pretty sure Deputy Director Hill was smiling at the sight of Iron Man trying to get a sudden fall of snow out from under his collar.

** _Five._ **

She wasn’t even working.

She’d just agreed to babysit her tiny little nephew on her afternoon off, which she was regretting the moment she’d come into the apartment and Robb said she was a good sport and Mom was getting tired.

(Probably not actually tired, Arya guessed. More like Robb not being accurate about when he could pick up Rickard, since Jeyne’s shifts were kind of awful.)

Then the creepy mechanical spiders started attacking all down the street, and she had to pull out her phone, a toddler on her hip.

“Stark, aren’t you…” Agent Morse stopped at the sound of lasers. She was good that way, even if she was more than slightly crazy.

“At least a dozen mechanical spiders,” Arya said. “They have lasers, and one might have a machine gun turret. I could freeze that one, but I have a two year old with me.”

“The mouthiest Stark is in the city,” Bobbi said, finally. “I can probably get him, he’s good at quick. Barton, too.”

“Please,” Arya said. “My brother isn’t going to be happy.”

“Well, I don’t think they’re after you specifically,” Morse said, the sound of tapping in the background. “At least, not yet.”

“Seriously, freezing them?” Arya said. They were pretty close, but Arya didn’t think they could reach the third floor the apartment was in.

“Backup should be there within five minutes,” was Agent Morse’s non-answer.

Arya froze the one with a machine gun, causing sparks that were quickly smothered. The resulting iceball was about as big as the nearest car, and she went back to the kitchen, both for cover and because she needed aspirin.

The news didn’t know who froze the spider, and Iron Man and Hawkeye got the flashy stories, but even though it wasn’t her fault Robb had a mad scientist for a neighbor, she was pretty sure this was her last time babysitting.


End file.
